Between law and custom : "high and low legal cultures" in the lands of the British diaspora -- the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, 1600-1900
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Between law and custom : "high and low legal cultures" in the lands of the British diaspora -- the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, 1600-1900
Cambridge University Press, 2008
- : pbk
- Other Title
-
Between law and custom : "high" and "low" legal cultures in the lands of the British diaspora -- the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, 1600-1900
Available at 4 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
"First published 2002. This digitally printed version 2008"--T.p. verso
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
When British authorities established 'settler' colonies in North America and the Antipodes (New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Fiji) from the early seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries, they introduced law through parliamentary statutes and Colonial Office oversight, and they dispatched governors and judges to the colonies. These jurists set aside some aspects of English Common Law to meet the special conditions of the settler societies, but the 'Responsible Governments' that were eventually created in the colonies and the British immigrants themselves set aside even more of the English law, exercising 'informal law' - popular norms - in its place. Law and popular norms clashed over a range of issues, including ready access to land, the property rights of aboriginal people. the taking of property for public purposes, master-servant relationships and crown/corporate liability for negligent maintenance and operation of roads, bridges and railways. Drawing on extensive archival and library sources in England, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Karsten explores these collisions and arrives at a number of conclusions that will surprise.
Table of Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Introduction
- Part I. Land: 1. Law versus customs
- 2. Concribs, manuring, timber and sheep: landlords, tenants and reversioners
- 3. 'They seem to argue that custom has made a higher law': squatters and proprietors
- 4. Protecting one's prope'ty: takings, easements, nuisances and trespasses
- Part II. Agreements: 5. We have an agreement
- 6. Work: the formal and informal law of labour contracts
- Part III. Accidents: 7. Judicial responses to negligence claims by the British diaspora, 1800-1910
- 8. Beneath the iceberg's tip
- 9. Further sorties into the high, middle and low legal cultures of the British diaspora with some conclusions
- Cases discussed
- Cast of characters
- General index.
by "Nielsen BookData"